Differences of opinion were resolved by discussion among the group to achieve consensus or by majority vote. ACP-196 cell line For purposes of this analysis, when the role of hepatitis C or treatment was judged to be unlikely or only possible (i.e., <50% likelihood), the death was categorized as nonrelated (to hepatitis C and/or treatment), whereas the role of hepatitis C or treatment in any

death considered probable or highly likely (≥50% likelihood) was classified as related. Statistical analyses were performed at the Data Coordinating Center with SAS release 9.1 (SAS Institute, Cary, NC). Time-to-event analytic methods were used to compare survival distributions in the groups defined by randomization group and cirrhosis stratum at baseline. Significance was tested with the log-rank test of equality of survival distributions. Time-to-event was defined as the time between randomization and date of death if before December 31, 2008 or the date the participant was last known

to be alive. Participants not known to have died were censored at the date of last study contact or December 31, 2008, whichever occurred first. Last study contact included the latest of the following: last study visit, last telephone contact, last biopsy, liver transplantation, study outcome (excluding death), or date of randomization. Participants who died after December 31, 2008 were censored

at that date. We report the P-value for the test of the overall hypothesis Selleck Proteasome inhibitor of equality of survival distributions and the 7-year cumulative death rates as a measure of the size of the difference at the end of the observation period. Extensive selleck chemicals details on the composition of the HALT-C Trial cohort have been provided in previous publications.5, 6 The 1,050 randomized patients all had chronic hepatitis C, active viremia, and a liver biopsy showing advanced fibrosis (n = 622) or cirrhosis (n = 428). Participants were predominantly male (n = 745, 71%), and half were older than 49 years (range, 19-80, median 49 years). Most patients were non-Hispanic white (n = 812, 77%), 108 (10%) were non-Hispanic black, 107 (10%) Hispanic, and 23 (2%) were of other or mixed ethnicity. The sample included 306 (29%) people who reported being current smokers and 221 (21%) who were diabetic. The overall design, numbers of patients, and flow of patients in the treatment and control arms at the different timepoints are shown in Fig. 1. A total of 122 deaths occurred among 1,050 randomized patients (12%) over a median period of 5.7 years (range, 0-8 years). In addition, 74 patients (7%) underwent liver transplantation, 10 of whom subsequently died and were included in the total number of deaths (Table 1).